It's our life

it's our heart, it's our home

This is our kingdom

Present Day
Tara Belle
Scotland

“Dorian?!” The sound of the flooplace from the other room had Ilias running in that direction and Kate knew that there would be no stopping her son as he took off in the direction of his father. It was early for her husband to be home, but she knew that there were others that it could have been. She was sure that it was Dorian though the moment that she heard Ilias’s squeal of, “Pateroúlis!”

How they had ended up here, she didn’t know, but the redhead lifted their daughter out of the playpen and onto her hip as she headed out of her office and towards the sitting room where she could hear the delighted giggles of her son as he engaged with his father. It was like he hadn’t seen him in ages, when in fact Dorian had only been gone for six hours. Kate was grateful for the ability to work from home, they needed her here, and as much as she had thought that she was going to hate this life, she was pleasantly surprised by it.

Being somebody’s wife wasn’t in the cards, or it hadn’t been, when Griff had gotten hurt. When she had gone a little off the rails back then, she hadn’t known that she was going to get her life back on track. She hadn’t known that she was going to wind up successful, and happy, let alone wind up married to Dorian Nott. Her mother had been more than pleased that she had managed such a match on her own. And she was glad that they had let her be and hadn’t pushed her. If they had, she wouldn’t have had all of this.

Her smile lit up her face as she came around the corner to see the two of them. The dog barked from the kitchen, and she flipped her hand towards the baby gate so that she could join the boys that were rough-housing in front of the fireplace. Kate shook her head and bounced Talia once on her hip as she looked down at the little girl. “Daddy and Ilias are going to break something. And then Mummy is going to have to clean it up.” She wrinkled her down at her daughter as the boys seemed to settle down. Ilias had ended up on his father’s shoulders, and Kate squeezed Talia too her a little more.

“Be careful with him up there.” She knew that Dorian would never allow anything to happen to either one of them, but it still made her nervous to see her baby that high up off the floor without at least a hand on him. He had good balance. A quidditch player in the making according to his father and the majority of his uncles. But she didn’t know. There were enough quidditch players in this family without her four year old being amongst them. There would be plenty of time for that when he got bigger.

Stepping across the space between them she stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You’re home early, everything okay?” He hadn’t told her that anything was going wrong, and she thought that he would have. There weren’t secrets. There couldn’t be. But she didn’t know what it was that would have brought him home in the middle of the day. Their family was large, on both sides. There always could have been something happen that she didn’t know about all the way up here, but he was smiling, and she thought perhaps he had come home early with good news instead of bad for a change.

@dorian • 609 • catherine's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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kingdom

[attr="class","reasonsmall1"]It's perfectly imperfect It's worth more than it's worth

[attr="class","reasonbod1"]Merlin’s Beard…it was like their son had inherited superhuman speed from one of them, Dorian thought as Ilias collided with his legs. His son was wrapping his arms around him – and Dorian immediately bent so the boy could wrap his arms around his father’s neck. He felt strong as he rose to his feet.

Years of Quidditch training had done him good. A clean record had only furthered it. Dorian wasn’t the man that he had been all those years ago. And for that, he was thankful. If he hadn’t changed, he wouldn’t have made it here.

“Pateroúlis!”

“Hey kid,” Dorian said. Somehow he managed to disentangle his son’s eager hands from his neck and held him out in front of him. Ilias was grinning expectantly and, as Dorian quickly loosened his grip and let his son drop a few inches, the boy broke into laughter.

“Fly me around, Papa!”

It was a common request – the kids loved the feeling of flying. After all, they did have a famous Quidditch star for a father. With a wink of his eye, Dorian turned his son to face front and revved an imaginary engine. The buzzing of Dorian’s lips mimicked the sound of an old fashioned flying car as he ran Ilias around the living room. “And he slides into first place, Ilias Nott about to grab the golden snitch and –“ Dorian’s eyes caught Kate’s and he raised an eyebrow.

“And what’s this…Little Talia has managed to snag the snitch right out from under our noses?” Dorian paused as he hoisted Ilias up onto his shoulders. The boy gave an audible groan, having lost the game to his little sister, but seemed content with his new perch upon his father’s broad shoulders.

A family man. That was never in the cards for Dorian. He’d always expected it from Lester and Malcolm but…never himself. He’d dreamed that he’d spend the rest of his life a nomad…but Kate had changed all of that.

“You worry too much,” he said, using the arm that wasn’t clasped around their son’s leg to wrap around his wife and daughter. Dorian leaned down to plant a kiss on Kate’s forehead, to which Ilias groaned.

“Gross,” he snickered, and in one swift movement, Dorian had removed him from his shoulders and was holding him upside-down between his mother and father.

“What was that?”

“I said…gross!” The little boy managed between strained laughter as Dorian tickled him.

He knew he was ignoring her question. Everything was fine – wonderful really. The news was good. Better than good. The news was what he had been hoping for for months. Dorian was the new Coach of the Wimbourne Wasps. He had gone from top player to Captain and now that he was almost ready to retire from the pitch, they’d retained him with another honor. He smiled as he slowly released Ilias onto the ground and the boy scampered off. He was probably on his way to show them something, or to try and ride the dog around the living room.

“Had that interview today,” he said, slipping out of the stiff suit jacket that he had put on. It was his – something he’d never thought he’d own – and yet, here he was, standing is his very posh home with his very beautiful wife and very beautiful two children wearing a suit jacket.

Dorian was trying to keep a straight face – attempting to conceal the happiness and good news that threatened to seep out of him. But he wanted to surprise her.

“And…” It was unnecessary, really. But now, Dorian was just pushing her buttons. He was dragging out the conversation for the sake of dragging it on because he wanted to. He knew it would grind her gears and he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make her squirm. Dorian feigned a frown, turning to throw his jacket onto one of the nearby chairs. Now that he wasn’t facing her, he felt the smile grow on his lips. Coach of the Wimborne Wasps. “I did it, Kate,” He turned around slowly, his eyes lighting up like a Yuletide tree. They did it.

[attr="class","reasontag1"]@ kate | 691 | OUTFIT

[attr="class","cred1"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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it's our life

it's our heart, it's our home

this is our kingdom

She could admit that this was not the life that she had thought that she was going to have. Not when she had been out hunting down ghosts and chasing her own demons. This had never been in the cards. And then things had changed. She had settled down. And he had seemed to stumble into her life at exactly the right moment. She didn’t know how many times over the years she had thanked the stars that they had seemed to line up for them on that night. That someone out there had been determined that this was going to be a thing. That they were going to have a chance.

Dorian was unexpected on his own. Ilias and Talia were equally as unexpected. The house, and the two kids, and the dog in the yard. It was all some version of a dream that Kate had never even had. But now that she did, she didn’t want to trade it for the world. There was nothing about this that she would have taken back. That she would have done over again. They were happy, and they were exactly where they were supposed to have been all along. Messing up, time and time again to get here, sure. But they were here now.

They were here, and she knew that he had dreams, and goals. She knew that the Wasps had been good to him. He was a good chaser. He was an even better team captain, and she was so proud of him. Kate knew that support and love, and everything else that she could give him, would always be his, because he had earned that. He had built a solid life on top of the way that they had found one another. They had built a life. Two lives. That had somehow twisted together and made two beautiful new ones.

This family that they had built was more important to her than anything she could have imagined. Ten years ago, someone could have asked her where she saw herself now. And she would have said something catty. Or perhaps on a bad day, she would have even said dead. But this certainly wouldn’t have been her answer. Watching her husband swing their son around the room and dangle him upside down. Laughing as she set her daughter on the floor to run as best as she could after her brother.

They were perfect. Her two little babies. Draco had always told her that she had needed more than one, and she had laughed at him. Her best friend had always been an only child, and yet, once they’d had Ilias, she had had to admit that he had been right. She had wanted another one. She had wanted someone for him to grow up with, someone to play with. And they had had Talia. Named after both of their mothers. Kate had managed to redeem herself with Vitalia, and Talia herself was so proud of Dorian Kate thought that she was going to burst.

But right now, it was her turn to be worried, and proud, and nervous, for her husband. She had nearly forgotten about the interview until he had left this morning in a suit jacket. And somehow, she had forgotten again until he had just mentioned it. The interview for the Wasps. They had said that they had wanted to talk about keeping him on once he had decided to retire from playing. But an interview was a lot more serious than just talk. And Kate had been nervous for him. He had been a Wasp as long as she had known him. This was the job that he deserved.

The way that he was acting though, as the kids scampered off out of the room, she didn’t know how she felt about it. He was purposefully being difficult to read. She could tell that much. But she wanted to know. She needed to know. “Dorian…” He was dragging this out on purpose. Torturing her by completing mundane tasks, and still managing to leave his jacket strung all over for Kenna to have to clean up. His words reached her ears, and her face broke into a wide smile, “Yeah?!” She was so proud of him, “That’s amazing!” Jumping forward she wrapped her arms around his neck as she squealed her excitement in his ear, “I knew you could do it! They had to hire you.”

@ dorian • 742 • catherine's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0